ORCID Profile
0000-0003-1099-438X
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Publisher: Canadian Science Publishing
Date: 09-2017
Abstract: A poorly understood food web dynamic concerns possible seasonal variation in spatial subsidies associated with multi-trophic aquaculture and their effects on extractive and naturally occurring organisms. We used the stable isotopes δ 13 C and δ 15 N and circular statistics to investigate niche overlap across a year-long period at an experimental multi-trophic aquaculture facility in British Columbia, Canada. A two-source mixing model revealed that particulate organic matter was the most important food source for all s le invertebrates (mean range 40%–98%) compared with farm effluent (mean range 3%–35%). There were significant month-to-month changes in δ 13 C and δ 15 N for all species except for the brooding transparent tunicate (Corella inflata). We did not detect any directionality for the entire community, but did identify variable directional shifts for each species, suggesting resource partitioning driven by competition and (or) morphology-based differences in feeding strategies. This was further supported by seasonal variation in inter- and intraspecific isotopic niche widths. Isotopic niche overlap among co-occurring invertebrates appeared to be stronger during winter and summer than autumn months. Our study provides valuable insights on the role of multi-trophic derived effluent on a nearshore marine community composed of both natural and cultured species within the same feeding guild.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 28-08-2020
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 29-04-2022
DOI: 10.3389/FMARS.2022.869252
Abstract: A newly developed protocol to semi-automate egg counting in Southern Ocean shelled (thecosome) pteropods using image analysis software and machine learning algorithms was developed and tested for accuracy. Preserved thecosome pteropod ( Limacina helicina antarctica ) egg masses collected from two austral summer research voyages in East Antarctica were digitally photographed to develop a streamlined approach to enumerate eggs within egg masses using Fiji/ImageJ and the associated machine learning plugin known as Trainable Weka Segmentation. Results from this semi-automated approach were then used to compare with manual egg counts from eggs dissected from egg masses under stereomicroscope. A statistically significant correlation was observed between manual and semi-automated approaches ( R 2 = 0.92, p & 0.05). There was no significant difference between manual and automated protocols when egg counts were ided by the egg mass areas (mm 2 ) ( t (29.6) = 1.98, p = 0.06). However, the average time to conduct semi-automated counts (M = 7.4, SD = 1.2) was significantly less than that for the manual enumeration technique (M = 35.9, SD = 5.7 t (30) = 2.042, p & 0.05). This new approach is promising and, unlike manual enumeration, could allow specimens to remain intact for use in live culturing experiments. Despite some limitations that are discussed, this user-friendly and simplistic protocol can provide the basis for further future development, including the addition of macro scripts to improve reproducibility and through the association with other imaging platforms to enhance interoperability. Furthermore, egg counting using this technique may lead to a relatively unexplored monitoring tool to better understand the responses of a species highly sensitive to multiple stressors connected to climate change.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 20-06-2019
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.5380
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 12-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ECE3.9570
Abstract: Seabirds influence island ecosystems through nutrient additions and physical disturbance. These influences can have opposing effects on an island's invertebrate predator populations. Spiders (order: Araneae) are an important predator in many terrestrial island ecosystems, yet little is known about how seabird presence influences spider communities at the intraisland scale, or how they respond to seasonality in seabird colony attendance.We investigated the effects of seabird presence and seasonality on ground‐active spider community structure (activity‐density, family‐level richness, age class, and sex structure) and composition at the family‐level across five short‐tailed shearwater breeding islands around south‐eastern Tasmania, Australia. Using 75 pitfall traps (15 per island), spiders were collected inside, near, and outside seabird colonies on each island, at five different stages of the short‐tailed shearwater breeding cycle over a year. Pitfall traps were deployed for a total of 2674 days, capturing 1592 spiders from 26 families with Linyphiidae and Lycosidae the most common. Spider activity‐density was generally greater inside than outside seabird colonies, while family‐level richness was generally higher outside seabird colonies. For these islands, seabird breeding stage did not affect activity‐densities, but there were some seasonal changes in age class and sex structures with more adult males captured during winter. Our results provide some of the first insights into the spatial and temporal influences seabirds have on spider communities. We also provide some of the first records of spider family occurrences for south‐eastern Tasmanian islands, which will provide an important baseline for assessing future change.
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-02-2019
DOI: 10.1002/RCM.8384
Abstract: Stable isotope analysis (SIA) is a powerful tool to estimate dietary links between polar zooplankton. However, the presence of highly variable Whole bodies of three species of pteropods (Clio pyramidata f. sulcata, Clione limacina antarctica, and Spongiobranchaea australis) s led from the Southern Ocean were lipid-extracted chemically to test the effects on δ Pteropods with lipids removed had δ We recommend accounting for lipids via chemical extraction or mathematical normalization before applying SIA to calculate ecological niche metrics, particularly for organisms with moderate to high lipid content such as polar pteropods. Failure to account for lipids may result in misinterpretations of niche dimensions and overlap and, consequently, trophic interactions.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 26-05-2022
DOI: 10.3390/D14060425
Abstract: Sea ice is a major driver of biological activity in the Southern Ocean. Its cycle of growth and decay determines life history traits food web interactions and populations of many small, ice-associated organisms. The regional ocean modelling system (ROMS) for sea ice in the western Ross Sea has highlighted two modes of sea ice duration: fast-melting years when water temperature warms quickly in early spring and sea ice melts out in mid-November, and slow-melting years when water temperature remains below 0 °C and sea ice persists through most of December. Ice-associated and pelagic biota in Terra Nova Bay, Ross Sea, were studied intensively over a 3-week period in November 1997 as part of the PIPEX (Pack-Ice Plankton Experiment) c aign. The sea ice environment in November 1997 exhibited features of a slow-melting year, and the ice cover measured 0.65 m in late November. Phytoplankton abundance and ersity increased in the second half of November, concomitant with warming air and water temperatures, melting sea ice and progressive deepening of a still weak pycnocline. Water column phytoplankton was dominated by planktonic species, both in abundance and ersity, although there was also some input from benthic species. Pelagic zooplankton were typical of a nearshore Antarctic system, with the cyclopoid copepod Oithona similis representing at least 90% of total abundance. There was an increase in numbers coinciding with the period of ice thinning. Conversely, ice-associated species such as the calanoid copepods Stephos longipes and Paralabidocera antarctica decreased over time and were found in low numbers once the water temperatures increased. Stratified s ling under the sea ice, to 20 m, revealed that P. antarctica was mainly found in close association with the under-ice surface, while S. longipes, O. similis, and the calanoid copepod Metridia gerlachei were dispersed more evenly.
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 11-2018
DOI: 10.1029/2018JC014245
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-10-2022
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2006
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 09-02-2021
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 24-10-2022
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 24-08-2022
DOI: 10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0271078
Abstract: Regular monitoring is an important component of the successful management of pelagic animals of interest to commercial fisheries. Here we provide a biomass estimate for Antarctic krill ( Euphausia superba ) in the eastern sector of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) Division 58.4.2 (55°E to 80°E area = 775,732 km 2 ) using data collected during an acoustic-trawl survey carried out in February and March 2021. Using acoustic data collected in day-time and trawl data, areal biomass density was estimated as 8.3 gm -2 giving a total areal krill biomass of 6.48 million tonnes, with a 28.9% coefficient of variation (CV). The inaccessibility of the East Antarctic makes fisheries-independent surveys of Antarctic krill expensive and time consuming, so we also assessed the efficacy of extrapolating smaller surveys to a wider area. During the large-scale survey a smaller scale survey (centre coordinates -66.28°S 63.35°E, area = 4,902 km 2 ) was conducted. We examine how representative krill densities from the small-scale (Mawson box) survey were over a latitudinal range by comparing krill densities from the large-scale survey split into latitudinal bands. We found the small scale survey provided a good representation of the statistical distribution of krill densities within its latitudinal band (KS-test, D = 0.048, p -value = 0.98), as well as mean density ( t -test p -value = 0.44), but not outside of the band. We recommend further in situ testing of this approach.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2022
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 08-2023
DOI: 10.1029/2022GB007613
Abstract: Manganese (Mn) is an essential element involved in photosynthesis, yet its concentrations in Southern Ocean open waters are very low, arising from biological uptake and limited external inputs. At southern latitudes, waters overlying the Antarctic shelf are expected to have much higher Mn concentrations due to their proximity to external sources. In this study, we investigated the potential export of Mn‐rich Antarctic shelf waters toward depleted open Southern Ocean waters. Our results showed that while high Mn concentrations were observed over the shelf, biological uptake decreased dissolved Mn concentrations in surface waters north of the South Antarctic Circumpolar Current Front ( .1 nmol kg −1 ), limiting its export. Conversely, mixing between Mn‐rich Antarctic Bottom Waters and Mn‐depleted Lower Circumpolar Deep Waters combined with oxidative and scavenging processes led to a decrease in dissolved Mn concentrations within bottom waters, with distance from the coast. Particulate Mn concentrations also showed a decreasing trend with distance from the coast. A comparison with other Antarctic coastal regions suggests this bottom water Mn removal may be widespread and that East Antarctica may be characterized by lower Mn concentrations compared to other regions. Still, subsurface dissolved Mn maxima (0.3–0.6 nmol kg −1 ) represented a potential reservoir for surface waters. We hypothesize that these high subsurface values result from external sources near the shelf. Overall, these results suggest that the moderate lateral export of trace metal‐enriched waters contributes to the extremely low and potentially limiting Mn concentrations previously reported further north in this Southern Ocean region.
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 17-06-2022
Abstract: In the Southern Ocean, several zooplankton taxonomic groups, euphausiids, copepods, salps and pteropods, are notable because of their biomass and abundance and their roles in maintaining food webs and ecosystem structure and function, including the provision of globally important ecosystem services. These groups are consumers of microbes, primary and secondary producers, and are prey for fishes, cephalopods, seabirds, and marine mammals. In providing the link between microbes, primary production, and higher trophic levels these taxa influence energy flows, biological production and biomass, biogeochemical cycles, carbon flux and food web interactions thereby modulating the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Additionally, Antarctic krill ( Euphausia superba ) and various fish species are harvested by international fisheries. Global and local drivers of change are expected to affect the dynamics of key zooplankton species, which may have potentially profound and wide-ranging implications for Southern Ocean ecosystems and the services they provide. Here we assess the current understanding of the dominant metazoan zooplankton within the Southern Ocean, including Antarctic krill and other key euphausiid, copepod, salp and pteropod species. We provide a systematic overview of observed and potential future responses of these taxa to a changing Southern Ocean and the functional relationships by which drivers may impact them. To support future ecosystem assessments and conservation and management strategies, we also identify priorities for Southern Ocean zooplankton research.
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 06-2023
DOI: 10.1029/2022RG000770
Abstract: Antarctic landfast sea ice (fast ice) is stationary sea ice that is attached to the coast, grounded icebergs, ice shelves, or other protrusions on the continental shelf. Fast ice forms in narrow (generally up to 200 km wide) bands, and ranges in thickness from centimeters to tens of meters. In most regions, it forms in autumn, persists through the winter and melts in spring/summer, but can remain throughout the summer in particular locations, becoming multi‐year ice. Despite its relatively limited extent (comprising between about 4% and 13% of overall sea ice), its presence, variability and seasonality are drivers of a wide range of physical, biological and biogeochemical processes, with both local and far‐ranging ramifications for the Earth system. Antarctic fast ice has, until quite recently, been overlooked in studies, likely due to insufficient knowledge of its distribution, leading to its reputation as a “missing piece of the Antarctic puzzle.” This review presents a synthesis of current knowledge of the physical, biogeochemical and biological aspects of fast ice, based on the sub‐domains of: fast ice growth, properties and seasonality remote‐sensing and distribution interactions with the atmosphere and the ocean biogeochemical interactions its role in primary production and fast ice as a habitat for grazers. Finally, we consider the potential state of Antarctic fast ice at the end of the 21st Century, underpinned by Coupled Model Intercomparison Project model projections. This review also gives recommendations for targeted future work to increase our understanding of this critically‐important element of the global cryosphere.
No related grants have been discovered for Christine Weldrick.